Talk:An Inconvenient Truth

POV summary?

I appreciate what Pulveriser did to make the summary more or less NPOV but I still wonder if it is as neutral as possible. Or maybe I'm just imagining things? iKato 17:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It should be qualified that Al Gore is not a Scientist. Other than that, it's POV fine to me Piepants 09:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)Piepants

It still isn't neutral enough... an article tends to follow its first form... this article should be written again while its still small. Pulveriser

Articles may follow their first form, but the point of wikipedia is to improve articles, not replace them.. Mathiastck 21:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I will charge this page with biased POV, the AGW politicos have destroyed any semblance of nuetrality or balance here, it is just a political add for Gore and AGW, disgusting.

links Not working

The source link in the trivia section (no. 6) is apparently only for subscribers... plz someone fix

Also not working is the CNN link about Bush's response, and Gore's response to Bush's response. What is the policy for dealing with expired references? Let them be (since they still serve as URIs)? Annotate them? Replace if possible and delete otherwise? Somegeek 00:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay — should be working now... The lorax 01:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"Global climate change" vs. "Global warming"

Should we change the term to "Global climate change" throughout? That is the more accurate term, since we are talking about more than just temperature, e.g. precipitation patterns. Also while the global mean temperature is expected to continue to rise, there will be likely be locations that actually get colder as weather patterns shift. Crust 18:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Since the 2 terms are interchangeable, particularly outside the U.S., I have added a single refereence that Global Warming is also referred to as "Climate Change". Mattwilkins 19:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Gore as Arch Druid?

This came from the Talk:Druid page; I wonder if it's not better suited in this article:

Should mention be made that people are calling Gore an Arch Druid? Mathiastck 18:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Source seems to be a single quote[1] from Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute; I'm not sure it warrants an inclusion here, but maybe in the article for An Inconvenient Truth. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This is possibly noteworthy as a reflection on the person or organization saying this, but just like comparisons of Gore to Hitler and Goebbels[2], these kinds of silly ad hominems don't merit mention here in my view. Crust 21:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This interests me exactly becuase of it's similarities to comparing Gore to Hitler. It seems strange to me that people think Arch-Druid is a slur. It might not be encyclopaedic, but I had not bring it up somewhere :) Mathiastck 23:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Re whether "Arch-Druid" is a slur: fine. But there is no question that Fred Smith thinks it is a slur. If you really want to bring it up somewhere, perhaps an appropriate place would be at Fred L. Smith or possibly Competitive Enterprise Institute, maybe under a "Trivia" section. Crust 13:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Kyoto

Korny O'Near made reference to a resolution that passed the Senate 95-0 that had the effect of stopping US ratification of Kyoto. Apparently, that unanimity may overstate the degree of opposition to Kyoto in the Senate at that time. I switched to a shorter, vaguer formulation in the article rather than getting into the weeds. Here is Gore on the subject in the second 2000 presidential debate:

A lot of supporters of the Kyoto Treaty actually ended up voting for that because of the way it was worded. But there's no doubt there's a lot of opposition to it in the Senate.[3]

Crust 18:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, fine. As long as it's not made to seem like just one party's responsibility, it's fine with me. Korny O'Near 20:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't mean to fan any flames here (and I'm actually in the midst of reading this book as we speak, so hopefully I don't come across as anything I'm not trying to be), but I have an issue with the passage regarding the 95-0 resolution against Kyoto. I feel that the words "Republican run" are getting us into trouble. Yes, the Senate was run by a Republican majority, but the bill was introduced by Democrat Robert Byrd and, at 95-0, it's hard to make a case for party-affiliation being the determining factor. I know this paragraph isn't trying to imply more than that, but at the same time, in the quest for NPOV, "Republican run" seems to me to be a jab that doesn't need to be thrown. Opinions? Lanford 04:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As it is, it sticks out awkwardly...the Senate opposition is already noted appropriately enough. On a side note, the vote was merely a comment on the direction of the Kyoto proceedings which were happening at the same time. The lorax 05:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the wording as it is currently (simply saying "but it was not ratified due to opposition in the United States Senate"). I agree saying "Republican run Senate" is potentially misleading, because it suggests that views broke down on party lines. On the other hand I think simply quoting the 95-0 vote could also be misleading because as The lorax says that vote was not a direct vote on ratification and it overstates opposition (see my previous comment in this thread). Crust 18:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism / Endorsements / Factchecking

I saw the movie yesterday, and am very curious to see whether there has been any serious and unbiased factchecking done by a third party about the movie. I could not find anything of the sort on the net; just people taken in by its message, but not having checked anything on their own, or conservatives out of hand rejecting it, usually without even seeing the movie. I know such a section might invite controversy and/or vandalism, but if someone is aware of some kind of serious factchecking effort, could you add it? Thanks. Hatzitaskos 19:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hatzitaskos, click on the RealClimate link under "Reviews" ([4]). They find some minor errors, but on the whole say it is correct. (RealClimate is a blog maintained by mainstream climate scientists to inform and educate the general public and the press on climate issues.) Crust 13:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is very critical of the film and cites a number of scientists. I don't know if it'd fit into this article, but it's there if someone smarter than me wanted to check it out and possibly add it to the Reviews section. --Age234 19:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. That article has a lot of weird stuff in it. For one thing it tries to claim that most climate experts don't believe in anthropogenic global warming; this is pretty creative, see Scientific opinion on climate change. I've never heard of "canadafreepress.com" before, but it doesn't seem like a reliable source. Crust 22:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You could go read a sort of review of the movie (or its basis) at A Real Inconvenient Truth Although being doubted as to motives as a source don't make what is being said correct (or incorrect) there is a lot of, um, discucussion shall we say, about this Clear Profile and Source Watch for example. None of this proves anything, but there you are.

junkscience is not science, it is precisely that; junk science. If you want to know if the movie got it right, go to www.realclimate.org , those guys know their stuff and they will more than likely provide external links in case you need more stuff.

Whois canadafreepress.com

If you go to http://www.networksolutions.com and do a Whosis they claim to be a right-wing news source right there in the Whois. "conservative, Toronto, Canada, US, newspaper, website, news, International, world, right wing" I would not trust their article one bit.--8bitJake 22:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, way to judge by appearances. If you take time to verify the sources then you will see that these quotes are not just made up. E. g. see this article[5] by Tim Patterson[6] who is a professor at Carleton University and publisher of articles such as "Late Holocene sedimentary response to solar and cosmic ray activity influenced climate variability in the NE Pacific" in the journal Sedimentary Geology. He is just one of the prominent critics of climate change orthodoxy that were quoted in the Canada Free Press article. Also see, by the same journalist, Tom Harris, this article[7] (also criticizing An Inconvenient Truth) in the Canada National Post (canada.com). Is the National Post an untrustable source?

Please ensure you sign your comments. Anyhow, Patterson's claim that there is no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures is interesting, since it directly contradicts the claim made by the film. I'm not sure how relevant the lack of correlation over 450 million years is, and I'd much rather see someone directly refute the data presented by Gore, which shows a clear correlation between CO2 levels and global temps. The Patterson quote is convenient for Tom Harris, but I'm not convinced it's relevant. ChrisLawson 14:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

ChrisLawson, as you suspect the 450 million year point is pretty much a red herring. A lot was different then, in particular the arrangement of the continents. I say "pretty much", because in a way there is an underlying valid point, namely that CO2 is far from the only determinant of global temperature, especially over longer time scales. The graph that Al Gore shows is correct. It is over a time frame of approximately 650,000 years (which is how far back our direct ice core measurements of CO2 go). So there's no direct contradiction here, just a difference of time scales; Gore's is obviously the more relevant one. Astrophysicists think that Earth will be engulfed by the Sun as it expands in a couple of billion years, but that is about as relevant as Patterson's point. One of the crazier arguments in that article is that without CO2 the earth would be a "frozen ice ball". So obviously Harris accepts the basic physics of the greenhouse effect in one direction: less CO2 then (everything else equal) the earth would be colder. It's very hard to fathom why he thinks this is an argument against the existence of the greenhouse effect in the opposite direction, i.e. more CO2 makes the earth hotter. Crust 15:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous edits claiming to remove bias?

It's annoying to see thse anonymous edits claiming to remove bias. Setting records is notewory. Mathiastck 22:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You keep removing a negative review while keeping the positive review, if that's not bias, I don't know what is.70.48.250.87 23:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous user, you're being intellectually dishonest with highlighting one bad review with a film that has received a 90% Rotten Tomatoes positive rating from 105 reviews. The lorax 02:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

reviews are nothing more than personal opnions. I suggest you to increase your intelligence. There's no rule that says Roger Ebert's opinion is more worthy than that of everyone else's. 70.48.250.87 03:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Moving The Register's review to the top and adding the out of context quote seem to indicate an intention to skew the article towards your own personal opinion (see WP:NPOV). The information about the box office record and links to the trailer are also perfectly valid and relevant. On a side note, questioning someone's intelligence isn't the way to resolve a content dispute (see WP:NPA). —chair lunch dinner™ (talk) 04:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

claiming it's box office gross was "the highest of any movie that weekend" can be seen to be false simply by looking at box office records. Adding the Roger Ebert quote to the top seems to indicate an intention to skew the article towards your own personal opinion (see WP:NPOV). If the Register's quote is biased, then so is Roger Ebert's quote, so either both should stay, or both should be removed. Oh and, question someone's honesty can be considered personal attack, (see WP:NPA) 70.48.250.87 05:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous user, see this article: http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-05-30 - it beat X-Men 3 on a per-screen average in it's opening weekend. In regards to the Roger Ebert review, it's a fair reflection of the mostly positive reviews the movie has received. Bumping up a rare negative review on AIT which doesn't represent the consensus opinion is not being NPOV.The lorax 06:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that The Register review was actually generally positive (the rating was 4 out of 5 "duck bunnies"); it was only the quote selected that made it appear otherwise. Perhaps we should add something to the article about the reviews being heavily slanted towards the positive (and often highly positive, e.g. Ebert review, A.O. Scott review in NYT); obviously, this requires care to maintain NPOV. Crust 14:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

per screen average is not a valid meansure of a film's success. The lesser the number of theaters in which the film opens in a given neighbourhood, the higher the per screen average becomes. It's elementary logic which you should be able to figure out on your own. For example, if only 1 theater in all of New York plays this movie, then the per screen average of this film would go through the roof, but it's total box office gross would be low. Theaters care about per-screen average because higher per screen average means more profit for the theater. In regards to Roger Ebert's review, wikipedia's consensus means consensus of Wikipedia editors, not consensus of the media. 67.70.57.26 23:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

per screen average may be a poor method of measuring success for a major motion picture, but it's the best we have for documentaries. If you would like to include other methods in the article great. In the meantime setting records is noteworthy. Mathiastck 01:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The movie's high per-screen total is relevant. But, right now, the article says it's the third highest-grossing "independent film". The other two listed movies are documentaries (not "independent films"). It's unlikely that it's the third highest grossing documentary, since it's only been out a few weeks. What about Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Hoop Dreams, Spellbound, and other simliar succesful documentaries? It may eventually beat them, but there needs to be sourcing for the claim. Lucky Adrastus 07:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The film is nowhere near the third highest grossing documentary yet. A list of highest-grossing documentaries (including Inconvenient Truth) is available here: http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=documentary.htm . It might become a record-setter eventually, but not yet.

Explaining reverting Anarchopedia and other edits

It looks like User:Anarchopedia has been making a lot of the edits previously made by anons. I went and changed most of those back and also made some other edits. Here are some of the things I changed:

• I put back the per-screen record. Such records are surely always notable. I think it is important to put in the caveat that it was only playing on 4 screens at the time, which is why I added text to that effect some time ago. If we are going to continue going back and forth on this, please at least note that the sentence "On Memorial Day weekend" doesn't have a verb.
• I deleted the link to Climate Audit's front page. That blog is specifically concerned with criticizing research on "hockey stick" graphs of historic temperature, which is one aspect of the debate. Gore does briefly show such a graph, but it represents perhaps one minute of a feature length film.
• I think the phrase "greenhouse gases" is better than "atmospheric carbon" for three reasons: it is more familiar to most people, it is more accurate (nitrous oxide, one of the three major greenhouse gases, does not contain carbon) and it avoids a potential confusion (methane and carbon dioxide have very different activity levels)
• I think "rededicates himself to combatting global warming" is more informative that "dedicates..." because this is not a new initiative for him.
• I believe Kristin Gore was no longer with Futurama and anyway she was not one of the writers for "Crimes of the Hot" as the previous version might suggest
• I put back in the book cover image. Since the book doesn't have its own separate page, I think the cover image should be here.
• I think one cartoon image suffices; I left the "Manbearpig" one. Also, I think the caption on the Futurama image was potentially misleading.
• The Roger Ebert quote:

"In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film."

is definitely notable. Ebert is the most prominent American film critic writing today. This is a very strong statement to make. Please note that saying Ebert is prominent is not the same thing as saying he is right. One may have the POV that Ebert is a bad film critic or that this statement is the least accurate statement he ever made or whatever; it's still notable. Crust 15:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

A link ebert's review is good enough, there's no reason why his quote needs to be put besides the link.

Climate audit does more than just criticize the hokey stick graph, it also talks about other scientific aspects of the debate.

per-screen record is not notable and most wikipedia movie articles do not mention per screen earning at all. Anarchopedia 04:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

If the issue on the Ebert quote is the location beside the link, we can put it in text of the article instead.

On per-screen earnings: Well, duh, most films don't set records.Crust 12:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

per-screen earning is not a notable record. Do you also think that fact that the movie is the highest grossing movie featuring Al Gore is a record? Anarchopedia 00:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Per-screen earnings are a standard stat people look at, second only to total earnings. IMDB thought the per-screen record was worth highlighting in the first paragraph of their May 30 roundup:

"In another surprising debut, Al Gore's global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, amassed $365,787 at only four New York and Los Angeles theaters -- or $91,447 per theater, the highest-ever average for a documentary. (By contrast, X3 averaged $32,554 per screen.)"[8]Crust 04:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

per screen average is not a valid meansure of a film's success. The lesser the number of theaters in which the film opens in a given neighbourhood, the higher the per screen average becomes. For example, if only 1 theater in all of New York plays this movie, then the per screen average of this film would go through the roof, but it's total box office gross would be low. Theaters care about per-screen average because higher per screen average means more profit for the theater. Anarchopedia 15:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

And overall gross figures are invalid because of inflation. Total viewers would be invalid because of population growth. Every statistical measure of a movie's success has problems. Besides, are you suggesting they might have played it on less screens hoping to manipulate its per-screen average? That would be laughable. They want to make as much money as possible, not win the per-screen all time record. Gore would want the most people to see it. These goals conflict with that idea. Last, it's clearly a statistic used in the documentary world and not the invention of some fan of this movie. --FNV 20:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Modified sentence about AP poll

I modified the sentence about the June 2006 AP poll of scientists who had seen the movie because it left out a fairly important quote from the article; namely that most of the 100 scientists contacted either hadn't seen the movie or read the book or hadn't responded to the poll. Only 19 of the 100 contacted responded that they had seen it. This is an important clarification, because it's very possible that some or all of the scientists who disagree with Al Gore's stance might not have bothered seeing the movie, for example. Likewise, scientists who actively support Gore are going to be much more likely to see the movie. Thus the poll results are likely inherently biased in the movie's favor.

Note that I'm not commenting on or disputing the accuracy of the movie or other parts of the article. I'm simply saying that the AP poll isn't scientific, and in fact the way it's presented with the headline Scientists OK Gore's movie for accuracy is very misleading. Most scientists didn't even see the movie, let alone comment on its accuracy. Dugwiki 15:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. The sentence as you edited it looks good to me. Crust 15:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Bias

I fail to see how pointing out that kilimanjaro has been losing snow for 150 yrs, a senate subcommittee on the environment taking exception to an ap report on the movie, the incorrectness of gore's hockey stick, or a un subcomittee report are nontopical or biased.

There has been some controversy in regards due to the accuracy of the science in the film. · In the beginning of the film, Gore mentions his mentor at Harvard and inspiration, Dr. Roger Reville. Dr. Reville wrote an article in the 1993 claiming that science is "too uncertain to justify drastic action" with regards to global warming. [S.F. Singer, C. Starr, and R. Revelle, "What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1 (1993) 28-33] · The snowcaps at Mount Kilimanjaro have been retreading since 1850, due to a decline in precipitation. There is no direct correllation to global warming. [5] · Gore's illustrated hockey stick fails to account for the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age. · Accoding to United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is impossible to attribute hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, etc. to Global Warming, as Mr. Gore attempts to do with Hurricane Katrina. [6] · Sea levels have been rising 1.8 mm per year for the last 8,000 years. The IPCC states that "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected." [7] · Even the AP's report about the 19 top climate scientists praising the science behind the film has been called into question by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. [8]

Someone tell me what is wrong with any of these points.

Replies:

• Kilimanjaro: You can read about the consensus view in detail here [9] (Section 3). It's a complicated story, but the gist is that the retreat up to about 1900 is believed to be primarily related to precipitation and since then primarily not.
• A Senate subcommittee may not the best place to be looking for scientific opinion.
• On the hockey stick: It is not "[G]ore's hockey stick". As with all this stuff, there are people, including some scientists, who dispute the scientific studies. The appropriate question for this article is whether or not Gore is reflecting the scientific consensus, not whether the scientific consensus is correct. I do think it is a good idea to point out though that there is dissent and I've put in a sentence about that with a link to the GW controversy article.
• Roger Revelle died in 1991. His statement obviously reflected the science at that time. A lot has changed since then.
• Sea levels: Gore talks about the risk of a sudden increase in sea level if the Greenland ice sheet and/or the West Antarctic ice sheet were to collapse, not the slow but continuous rise we are currently seeing. You can read more here: [10].

The bottom line is Gore is explaining scientific consensus, not making stuff up as your edits might suggest. This article is not the right place for a debate about whether that consensus is correct. That said, I do think we should reflect that there is a debate and I've added a sentence to that effect as you can see. Crust 18:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that by including the opinion of Roger Ebert, a known liberal, see review of Life and Times of David Gael, and not including the report that has on it a committee of senators, this report is taking a political slant. You said that a scientific opinion should not be searched for at the senate subcommitte. Is not Al Gore an ex-senator, and would it be more appropriate to include the opinion of an esteemed MIT professor, such as Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, wrote:

“A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.” - Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal

We're not quoting Ebert in the science section. Lindzen is a well-known skeptic; he is among a small minority of scientists on this stuff. It should surprise noone that he doesn't like the film. Gore is an expositor not a scientist. My contention is we should try to ascertain whether Gore is reflecting the scientific consensus and not get into the debate about whether the consensus is correct or not (in this article), other than pointing out that the debate exists. Do you disagree?

By the way, I notice you're new to Wikipedia. It's good practice to sign your posts on talk pages with by appending 4 tildes. Crust 19:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe this article pushes that Gore is correct, and any other opinion is incorrect. Also, as far as the article linked on Kilimanjaro, this is an excerpt:

"In short, Kilimanjaro may be a photogenic spokesmountain "no matter what the climatic agenda" but it is far from ideal as a laboratory for detecting human-driven warming. "

Since this is from the oft-cited realclimate.org, should it be cited?

Also, by refusing to point out the 95-0 vote, it gives an image of a substantial republican block, not one by the whole senate because of the double standard of the treaty.

nbulling

On Gore being "correct" or not, you didn't answer my question. I think we should make this about whether he gets the scientific consensus correct and not about whether that consensus itself is correct (other than to note there is a debate and link to the appropriate article). Do you agree or disagree? On Kilimanjaro, the next sentence after your quote is "The debate over it obscures the nearly universal agreement among glacier and climate experts that glaciers are retreating all over the world, probably as a result of the greenhouse-gas buildup." Kilimanjaro is one of perhaps a dozen glaciers Gore discusses. On Kyoto, see previous discussion above; it's probably best to continue any debate there.Crust 19:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a discussion of An Inconvenient Truth, not Scientists consensus. I believe we should be allowed to present the case for the backers of the movie and the skeptics, as opposed to any text pointing out a skeptic's view being deleted. We know some scientists agree. We cannot read about the scientists who disagree and their exact quotes however. All you've pointed out with Kilimanjaro is scientists do not know for sure if global warming is a cause. As Al depicts that it is in the movie, I believe it is noteworthy to show there is debate. The Kyoto debate goes along with my contention that this article has a liberal POV. It feels like Fahrenheit 451, except for the firefighters are only burning the text with a certain POV.nbulling

nbulling, comparing your interlocutors to book-burners may not be the best way to foster a constructive dialogue.Crust 20:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

(I moved some comments on Kyoto to the Kyoto section above. Crust 18:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC))

I doubt anything much can be written on this (at least here, if not anywhere) that isn't going to be biased. Take a look at this for example. Various from 1880 Now, what does that prove or not? How about this [IPCC from 1000 versus this NCDC Jones Mann from 1670 It's all rather pointless in a way. It all seems biased, isn't that how humans operate? You could always just go get the dictionary definitions: "Main Entry: global warm·ing Pronunciation: -'wor-mi[ng] Function: noun : an increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution" or "global warming NOUN: An increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere, especially a sustained increase sufficient to cause climatic change." Now those don't seem too biased.

Folks...can we keep this discussion [and the article, please] on topic? This article is about Al Gore's docudrama, not about global warming. Try to keep that in mind. Tomer^talk 05:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Removal of "An Inconvenient Truth" fan site link

I took out this link again after reviewing the site. I went there with some curiousity about the "personal audit" referred to in the link description, as this could be a good way to bring the impact of the film and the campaign against global climate change down to a personal level. But I was disappointed when I found that the site seemed suspect in several ways. The first bad sign was when the voice-over started automatically upon loading; to me, this indicates something surreptitious about a web site. There was no link to this personal audit that I could find; apparently you had to sign up first, whereupon you would receive something via email which would either contain or lead you to the audit. So it does seem suspiciously like someone's attempt to cash in on the ongoing Internet Gold Rush, albeit with a "green" façade. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 17:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

As a general matter, I don't have a strong opinion as to whether this link should be included. However, I am unconvinced that it is likely a front for something else. I don't get what's surreptious about the automatic voiceover; the offical website automatically loads a soundtrack too, as do many websites these days. Asking for email does prick my antennas, but e.g. the blog ([11]) has a lot of content and seems to be updated regularly, but doesn't require an email. Crust 17:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I originally removed this link. I submitted one of my email address for the "personal audit". I didn't receive any information on the personal audit. However, I did receive a solicitation to join spiritual-cinema-circle.com (a netflix-like video club that ... blah blah blah). Thankfully there was an unsubscribe link that seems to have actually been honored. kenj0418 16:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. That is more convincing. Crust 14:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Bias in review section

The review section states that the reaction has been positive from "the largely left leaning media outlets", citing Rotten Tomatoes's aggregate score and Ebert and Roeper, then goes on to include Newsmax and Reason.com as dissenting reviewers without any mention of their politics or even their names. This makes it sound, without checking the links, like "the liberal media" loves it while more neutral parties were less enthused. --4.254.118.162 00:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I should add that two of the three dissenting reviews are written by people who describe themselves as converts to the global warming concept, which I think is worth mentioning since you can believe in global warming and still not like the film, while the Newsmax review mostly portrays the film as a religious effort (while calling Exxon-Mobil's environmental record "allegedly" poor). --4.254.118.162 00:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Bias in Scientific Basis section

An user named likes to be anon continues to revert NPOV language to his POV, there is no unanimous agreement among scientists that GW is caused by human CO2, and many references to the scientific controversy, but this article is hopeless if people continue to bias it. Dr. JJ 22:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Dr. JJ

I agree; consensus is not synonymous with unanimous. Prototime (talk • contribs) 23:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a red herring to me; who said that opinion was unanimous? I don't think that was ever in this article (and shouldn't have been if it was). +ILike2BeAnonymous 15:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Unfree image gallery"

Three images (1) Image:Inconvenienttruth.jpg,2) Image:Inconvienent-truth.jpg,3) Image:Aninconvenienttruth.jpg)were deleted from a movie posters section on the apparent grounds that they may be copyvios. Can User:JKelly or someone else elaborate on this? They were all marked as "movie posters". Superfically at least, this looks correct for two of them, though perhaps not for Image:Inconvenienttruth.jpg. Crust 14:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Just having the correct template on the image description isn't sufficient for meeting Wikipedia:Fair use criteria. We attempt to make as minimal use of unfree content as possible. If we're claiming Wikipedia:Fair use on an image that is being presented in a gallery, there is almost certainly a lack of appropriate critical commentary on the image, and there is no pressing need to make the article less free and reusable. Jkelly 17:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

User:JKelly, I think you were the one who originally removed them (on July 25). Could I ask you to comment on these specific images? Your comment is too generic to satisfy me. Thanks. Crust 18:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to leave you unsatisfied, but I cannot imagine what more there might be to say. Wikipedia is a project to write a free, reusable encyclopedia. Any use of unfree content, such as movie posters (and whatever Image:Inconvenienttruth.jpg is -- there's no source and no description of it, and it will be deleted from our servers if this doesn't change), should only be used when absolutely essential for a reader's understanding of the article. The policies I linked to above apply to all unfree content. Jkelly 18:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

My bad. I hadn't looked at the "Movie poster" tag closely enough. Note to self: using movie posters on Wikipedia is typically considered only barely acceptable under fair use and should be minimized (the main and perhaps sole exception being to use one such image on the movie's page as currently done here). Crust 19:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Formatting as bias?

I am confused by these edits by User:Anarchopedia [12] [13]. They seem to be largely undoing formatting edits, turning prose into lists, moving the movie poster out of the infobox, adding a "trivia" section and "see also" items that are already linked to in the text, and removing the interwiki to sv. The first edit summary read "removing bias", but these changes are mostly degrading the formatting of the article and have little, if anything, to do with content. Please take the time to review the Wikipedia:Manual of style, and examine some Wikipedia:Featured articles about films to get a sense of what we're looking for. There's a lot of work to do on this article, so it would be very unhelpful to invest time in edits that will be reverted, which any edit that removes interwiki links is sure to be. Jkelly 01:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

doesn't make sense to put "scientific basis" section above the "origin of the film" section. Anarchopedia 01:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Is there some reason you're having trouble making that edit without doing all of the other things that are problematic? Jkelly 01:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll also note that a bit of the critical material got excised as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

And we've reacquired a trivia section, which used to be integrated into the text, a tagline section as a list which used to be integrated into the text, lost the sv: interwiki again... Jkelly 02:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted back, there is no reason to junkify the page with awkward formatting edits.--The lorax 03:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing Robt Lindzer

Dear editors, please try to keep in mind, this article is about the movie, not about the wider topic of global warming. Just because you may disagree with Lindzer is no reason to act like he never registered an opinion on the movie. As for the assertion that he can't be mentioned because he represents the scientific opposition, that's ludicrous. Removing him for that trumped up reason amounts to little more than wanton POV vandalism. A far more constructive approach is to find other scientific responses. Tomer^talk 06:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

No mention of critics?

There have been plenty of people including scientists who have disputed Al Gore's claims in the movie yet there are none to be found in the article. Wait..there's a tiny, tiny mention but that's it. This article is totally 100% favorable towards the movie. I'm not saying that the article should bash the movie. However, it should give both sides of the argument without any POV bias. --Rambone (Talk) 18:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Think of it this way: let's say another documentary gets released this summer, this one called "A Flat-Out Lie", an exposé of the scientific bankruptcy of the few remaining holdouts who believe the Earth is flat. Part of the film includes the fact that of n scientists recognized as experts in that field, exactly zero of them agree with this minority viewpoint. Would you then be arguing that, in the interest of "NPOV", we should give the views of the Flat Earth Society equal weight to the overwhelming preponderance of scientific consensus on the matter? +ILike2BeAnonymous 19:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If they were vocal enough then yes. --Rambone (Talk) 01:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The question should be, then, if there has been enough criticism of this film for it to be equally notable in this article as the praise. I agree that there shouldn't be any POV bias, but if this film has received much more praise than criticism, then this article should represent that and not seek to balance the minority opinion with the consensual opinion; doing that would be POV. However, if you agree with this philosophy but feel that the minority opinion isn't being proportionally represented in this article, then that could be up for debate. –Prototime (talk • contribs) 21:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

ExxonMobil YouTube video scandal

I suspect that everything that might be said about the "ExxonMobil YouTube video scandal" could be said in this article. Further, it is not at all clear to me that we should have an article describing this as a "scandal". Jkelly 19:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If it needs mention at all, it should have its own article, but not at that title. That's a horrid, misleading title if I've ever seen one. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Why should it have its own article? Jkelly 19:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it should exist in any form, but if it's going to, it should have its own article. I see no reason to merge here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Because it is a short parody of this film, created in response to it, and would be like having an article on Competitive Enterprise Institute's two television advertisements arguing against An Inconvenient Truth. Why do we want to have subarticles on individual reactions? Jkelly 19:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The CEI responses aren't nearly as newsworthy and compelling as this is, especially considering the spin we're seeing from folks like below. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it would be like having an article on JibJab-- which we have, based on them having done nothing but a couple videos like this (it was there since they had only the one)... Now imagine if it turned out JibJab was found to have secretly been hired by a political interest group to promote a message in their video. Give it a few days to see what more information comes up, who else is implicated, and what comments (or "no comment"s) come out about it!! //// Pacific PanDeist * 19:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

A major oil company hires a slick marketing agency to fake a 'nerd in the basement' bio and make a biting anti-Al Gore video? Looks like a scandal... smells like a scandal... should have its own article!! Besides, it touches on a lot more than just An Inconvenient Truth - it's also about the deceptive behavior of ExxonMobil, and the manipulability of YouTube... this thing is just beginning to open up and will probable have enough info to swamp this article soon!! //// Pacific PanDeist * 19:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually we don't know if "a major oil company" put up the DCI Group to make this for them. You're being speculative and not reflecting what is known and verifiable, one of the reasons why I find the title of the article tobe misleading. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal tied it to ExxonMobil... That's good enough for me!! //// Pacific PanDeist * 19:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, according to the link, "an investigation by The Wall Street Journal has discovered that Toutsmith is actually operating from Washington, on a computer registered to a PR company called DCI Group. The company’s clients happen to include the multinational oil company ExxonMobil." So no, they didn't. They tied it to the DCI Group, who has a client in ExxonMobil. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Dude, you change the name if you want but don't merge it into anything-- it's just as well merged into ExxonMobil or YouTube, which tells me it should be merged nowhere... but you know as much about the scandal as I do, and obviously you've been doing Wikipedia a lot longer, so I won't argue the title if you can come up with a better one... but it's the Wall Street Journal that thinks the link with ExxonMobil is significant, so they're just plain IN this thing (and come on, we know the score here)... I got groceries and stuff to do, check back manyana. //// Pacific PanDeist * 20:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with YouTube, beyond someone posted it there...when they could have posted it to any other site the does the same as YouTube...like Google video. I have removed that section from the YouTube article as there is no scandal on YouTube's part. A scandal, by definition, is: Damage to reputation or character caused by public disclosure of immoral or grossly improper behavior; disgrace. Where is YouTube's immoral or grossly improper behavior in this? How is it that they are being disgraceful? They are not. The system worked as intended where anyone can post a video and it will be hosted on their servers...so how is this a scandal on their end? They didn't post the video to their own servers nor did they 'feature' the clip. Yes it hit the 'most discussed' and 'most viewed' list for one day but how is that YouTube's fault? That is completely the "users of YouTube"'s fault. On Another note: How does anyone know that some guy in a cube just made this video out of spite in his own time? So he works for DCI, but used his work computer to do personal web surfing. We just don't know. In anycase, this exxon/youtube scandal article a NPOV addition, Soapboxing, and is not acceptable for Wikipedia. I would suggest deletion instead of merger --Bschott 15:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)